Reddit reviews A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian (Routledge Reference Grammars)

Cribbing this from A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian, which is a fantastic book that I highly recommend:

The order of adjectives in combination: molti bei libri 'many fine books', tavole rotonde verniciate or tavole rotonde e verniciate 'round painted tables', etc.

Specificational and demonstrative adjectives always precede other adjectives:

|It|En|
|:-|:-|
|questi bei quadri|'these fine pictures'|
|alcune piccole cose|'some small things'|

In other cases the order of combinations of adjectives is usually the mirror image of their order in English:

|It|En|
|:-|:-|
|impianti nucleari moderni|'modern nuclear installations'|
|fiori carnivori esotici|'exotic carnivorous flowers'|
|un ingegnere elettronico giapponese bravissimo|'an excellent Japanese electronic engineer'|

The basic principle is that a (postposed) Italian adjective modifies everything to its left, in other words it treats the preceding 'adjective + noun(s)' as a ‘block’:

ingegnere > elettronico > giapponese > bravissimo

It is usually possible for the 'outermost' adjective to be placed in front of the noun and its other modifying adjectives, according to the principles outlined earlier:

moderni impianti nucleari

esotici fiori carnivori

un bravissimo ingegnere elettronico giapponese

But Italian regularly makes a distinction not always made in English: phrases such as 'exotic carnivorous flowers' or 'elegant tapering fingers' are ambiguous between on the one hand 'carnivorous flowers which are exotic'/'tapering fingers which are elegant', where 'exotic' and 'elegant' define a subset of 'carnivorous flowers' and 'tapering fingers', and on the other hand 'flowers which are carnivorous and also exotic'/'fingers which are tapering and also elegant', where 'exotic/elegant' define a subset of 'flowers' and 'fingers', but not of 'exotic flowers' or 'tapering fingers'. In cases of the latter kind, in fact, English often inserts a comma between the two adjectives, but Italian obligatorily inserts the conjunction e between them:

|It|En|
|:-|:-|
|Cerca fiori carnivori ed esotici.|'He is looking for carnivorous, exotic flowers.'|
|Ha le dita affusolate ed eleganti.|'He has elegant, tapering fingers.'|
|Ricordatevi di essere concreti e di parlare con battute brevi e pungenti.|'Remember to be concrete and to speak in brief, pithy phrases.'|

When two adjectives are combined, and one of them is itself modified (e.g., by an adverb), the modified adjective normally follows the unmodified ones:

|It|En|
|:-|:-|
|una tavola elegante molto lunga|'a very long elegant table'|
|una tavola lunga molto elegante|'a very elegant long table'|